Global Justice for Animals

 

News Release

 

For Immediate Release 11, 2007

Contact: Adam Weissman (201) 928-2831

 

Animal Rights Group Condemns Humane Society Support of Peru Free Trade Agreement

 

New York -Global Justice for Animals, a national alliance of animal advocates opposed to free trade agreements that harm wildlife and farmed animals, has condemned the Peru Free Trade Agreement and the Congressional testimony at today's Senate Finance Committee hearing in support of the agreement's environmental provisions by Patti Forkan, President of the Humane Society of the US' international division.

 

On Thursday, Global Justice for Animals will be premiering Animal Rights, Globalization, and the Environment, a film and slide presentation documenting the devastating impacts of free trade agreements like the Peru deal, in New York City at Times Up at 49 East Houston Street between Mott and Mulberry Streets.

 

Environmental and animal rights advocates fiercely oppose the Peru Free Trade Agreement, which gives corporations the power to sue governments in international tribunals for enforcing their environmental laws in ways that limit the value of corporate investments. Peru's Amazon rainforests are among the most biodiverse and critically endangered ecosystems of the planet, threatened by logging, mining, and oil drilling. US corporations like Occidental Petroleum have caused irreparable environmental damage to the Amazon for decades, poisoning wildlife and indigenous people, and advocates believe the Peru Free Trade Agreement will embolden corporations to do even more damage.

 

HSUS was widely criticized within the animal protection and environmental communities in 2005 when it announced its support for the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), reversing its longstanding opposition to free trade agreements, and was rewarded with a $500,000 grant from the Bush administration's US Agency for International Development to support its "CAFTA Alliance" program. Since then, HSUS has been a consistent supporter of trade deals that activists believe endanger rainforest ecosystems and lead to the expansion of cruel and environmentally destructive factory farms, despite universal opposition to these deals by all other animal protection and environmental organizations. According to Global Justice for Animals' Adam Weissman, "By supporting agreements like CAFTA and the Peru Free Trade Agreement, HSUS is killing animals and damaging the environment."

 

In June, as part of a deal to ensure support for the agreement from Democratic Leadership, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab negotiated revisions to the agreement that added additional environmental safeguards to the deal. Environment and animal rights activists have judged the new environmental language insubstantial and unenforceable, and no one animal or environmental organization has deemed the changes sufficient cause to express support for the agreement.. According to Adam Weissman, "just as before the revisions to the Peru Agreement, HSUS stands alone in the animal and environmental advocacy communities in supporting this terrible trade deal. In fact, if the rest of our community had followed HSUS' lead last year, the Bush administration would have never bothered instituting even the meager improvements in the revised agreement."

Additional info: HSUS's support for free trade agreements: http://freetradekillsanimals.org/?page=Friends

Analysis of the Peru Agreement impacts on animals and the environment: http://freetradekillsanimals.org/?page=PeruFTA

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